Personality Conflicts: How To End The Stress
Surprise! The Answer Is Not Getting The Other Person To Change Behavior
Jacqueline Tresl, R.N., gives tips on coping with stress
June 23, 2000, 2:26 p.m. EDT
Is your boss autocratic and cranky? Has your significant other turned into a nag or a monosyllabic bore? Are the kids on hyperdrive?
When we interact with people who act differently from us, we sometimes experience stress and emotional turmoil. In fact, one of the most common sources of stress originates with dysfunctional interpersonal relationships.
And the consequences of personality conflicts go beyond discomfort. According to J. Barton Cunningham, professor at the University of Victoria's School of Public Administration in British Columbia, "serious and enduring interpersonal difficulties" are a risk factor in the development of coronary heart disease and other stress-related illnesses.
Cunningham says that the traditional risk factors of poor diet and smoking account for about 25 percent of the heart disease -- whereas recent studies suggest that stress, in one form or another, plays a significant role in the other 75 percent.
It's not hard to believe that our interpersonal relationships are stressed to the breaking point. Consider that more than half of all marriages end in divorce The nuclear family is an anachronism.
We still long for belonging and connection to a greater whole. But when relationships become discomfiting, we feel overwhelmed by stress and instinctively try to protect ourselves. Communities throw up gates. Individuals seek escapism through entertainment media or even substance abuse, becoming even more isolated and withdrawn.
It's our vicious relationship-circle.
What's Wrong With Them -- And You?
How do you defuse a personality conflict?
It's natural to focus on the objectionable behavior of the other person. After all, it's their offensive action that catches your attention in the first place. "If only they would change that behavior," you think, "we could get along."
Stop right there. The other person acts differently from you because everyone has his own motivations and needs. These variations among people account for our temperaments, quirks and flaws.
Our needs are hard-wired in our heads and are almost impossible to change. Most are childhood baggage that we lug with us into adulthood. It is unrealistic to expect that people are substantially similar or malleable. Therefore it is ludicrous to think that we can ever change our boss, our spouse, or even our 12-year-old son.
The best we can hope for is understanding.
Until you understand who you are -- and learn what it is about you that makes you react the way you do to traits in other people -- you will never end difficult interpersonal relationship cycles.
Not Your Type
Learning to recognize your personality type will give you insight into how you will likely react to other people.
You may discover that your type is radically different from that of your wife or your secretary. In fact, your personality style may be the single most important reason why you aren't getting along with significant others. Enter the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (aka the MBTI), a test that quantifies our unique instincts and preferences.
In 1920, psychologist Carl Jung developed a typology that describes our personality differences. According to Jung, people possess four basic preferences:
- extrovert/introvert
- judging/perceiving
- intuitive/sensing
- thinking/feeling
For example, the
thinking type tends to be less emotionally sensitive in his relationships. He persuades people using logic and argument. Thinking people use statements like, "Let's analyze this situation."
Whereas a feeling person might begin a statement with "I feel we should … " He bases many decisions on emotion.
Bring a feeling type in close contact with a thinking type, and the potential for enormous interpersonal relationship conflict is created.
How About You?
Find out your personality type. Remember that extroverts are outgoing; introverts prefer to be alone. Intuitive types live in the moment; sensing types want facts and verifiable information. Judging types prefer deadlines; perceiving types like to keep their options open.
Take a few minutes to answer the MBTI-like questions on this page. (But come back when you're done, won't you? We're not going anywhere and we'll wait for you.)
Feel better? Or at least, more self-aware? (More personality quizzes are listed at the end of the article.)
Our personality differences are not bad. Rather, it is the way we deal with these differences that results in stress and turmoil.
A key element in limiting destructive conflicts in our interpersonal relations is in an understanding of how we differ, then using that knowledge to grow stronger, better and more satisfying relationships.
Test Yourself:
Further Reading:
Next Stress Busters: More about personality differences and the stress they create in our interpersonal relationships.
--Jacqueline Tresl, R.N., a coronary intensive care nurse and nursing supervisor for over 20 years, writes about health and happiness for newspapers and magazines. Her first book, "Whoever Heard of a Horse In The House?" is scheduled to hit stores next week. First published March 30, 2000
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